Semi market contracted in 2012

According to IDC, the semiconductor market contracted 2.2% last year although larger companies saw bigger losses...

We all know that PC demand is slowing and it was not helped by lackluster performance from Windows 8. Intel, the largest semiconductor supplier saw its revenues decline to $50.0 billion in 2012, down 3% from 2011 according to the latest version of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Semiconductor Application Forecaster (SAF). But that is almost in line with the rest of the industry. The top 10 vendors, representing 52% of worldwide semiconductor revenues, declined by the same amount compared to 2011 and the top 25 semiconductor firms who saw revenues of $206 billion also notched up a 3% decline. Overall, the total market declined by 2.2%

But it is not all bad news. 17 companies, with revenues of a billion or more, grew at a rate above 5% last year.

Samsung Electronics, the second largest supplier, saw revenues drop 6% but Qualcomm, the largest fabless semiconductor supplier, ranked third last year as revenues grew 34% to $13.2 billion due to its leadership in modem technology and success of its Snapdragon application processor in smartphones. Texas instruments, the number four supplier, saw revenues decline by 6% due to falling analog, DSP, and MPU revenues and the company's exit from its wireless business. Rounding out the top 5, Toshiba revenues were off by 13% from the previous year.

In segment terms, memory which represents 17% of the industry declined by 10%, processors were down 5% and analog was down 7%. The winners were in sensors and actuators which were up 11%, ASSP which account for 32% of the industry were up 4% and optoelectronics up 5%.

IDC expects the semiconductor market to return to growth in 2013 with revenues forecast to increase by 3.5 percent this year.

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